Mahwah Times

It’s no secret that Mahwah’s stock of affordable housing has fallen sharply since the early 2010’s. For decades we didn’t add new affordable housing, instead relying on the building boom of the late-1980’s to mid-1990’s. But those 25-year deed restrictions have all since expired.

Mahwah’s decades long neglect cannot be assigned to any single mayoral administration. None of our three prior mayors came anywhere close to creating the 32 new affordable units per every year that are required to be added. In this century, only the current Wysocki administration has kept pace.

Mahwah’s Affordable Housing requirements are divided into “rounds”. The first and second round are combined, for some reason, and described as “Prior Round”. The Third Round was extended to 26 years due to litigation. The new Fourth Round just began on July 1st, 2025.

Mahwah met our “Prior Round” of Affordable Housing obligation of 350 in the 1990’s. However due to decades of Mahwah failing to provide meaningful new affordable units, Mahwah has still not fulfilled our third Round requirement. The Wysocki Administration does have a pipeline of projects that it claims will fully meet Mahwah’s Third Round requirement.

Big News in Mahwah’s New Round of Affordable Housing

On March 31, 2025, Mahwah mediated and agreed to a Fourth Round Affordable Housing requirement of 495 affordable units to be built over the next 10 years.

The big news is that during the June 23rd Meeting the Town Council approved plans to only actually build 3 of those 495 affordable units over the next decade. Township Planner Darlene Green told the council that “[we] do not have to satisfy” the remaining 492 units with additional construction.

Over the next few months, we will certainly hear legal challenges to Mahwah’s belief that it does not have to actually build our Fourth Round obligation. Mahwah is basing our drastic reduction upon the Highlands Water Protection and Planning Act. But the regulatory revisions that are the basis were from 2024, and Mahwah made our agreement to the 495 unit requirement in 2025. In fact, Mahwah didn’t fully raise the issue until a week before the July 1st deadline. Litigation is certain to follow.

Other local towns have tried to avoid their Fourth Round requirements directly using litigation. Most notably Montvale is heading a group of 27 municipalities. Montvale claims to have also reduced their obligation to 3 units over the next decade. However, Montvale also appears to face imminent litigation.

The New Jersey Record published a summary of the June 27th meeting here. You can access Mahwah’s Draft Fourth Round Affordable Housing plan presented to the Council on Mahwah’s archive of our master plan or alternatively here. You can access a recording of the June 23rd meeting under the Township Council Archives. The Council Minutes are available here and you can scroll down to page 35 of the PDF for Resolution #247-25 and the barely legibly presentation.

Why does Mahwah have an obligation to provide affordable Housing

In the 1970’s and 80’s there were a series of NJ Supreme Court rulings that the NJ Constitution required every municipality in the state must provide their “fair share” of regional housing needs, including affordable housing for low- and moderate-income families. Fifty years of constitutional litigation continue to alter Mahwah’s requirements.

You can read a summary of the NJ constitutional requirements known as the Mount Laurel Doctrine here.